one more laugh to make me stay
by artlessICTOAN
Summary: "I heard that in Kumo, the air's so thin that everyone who lives there has lungs twice as big as everywhere else! Is that true?" The girl didn't look down at her, even as she asked the question, just stared straight up at the grey, but pleasantly sombre-looking sky. KaruFuu fluff, canon-verse, pre-relationship.


last day, free day, and this was a really sweet one to end on!

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"I heard that in Kumo, the air's so thin that everyone who lives there has lungs twice as big as everywhere else! Is that true?" The girl didn't look down at her, even as she asked the question, just stared straight up at the grey, but pleasantly sombre-looking sky.

Karui's neck almost hurt in sympathy. "No way, that's gotta be bull."

"So-" those burnt orange eyes finally glanced down at her, tiny smirk hinting at smugness "-you don't actually know then?"

She glared, forcing her mouth into as straight a line as she could manage. Fuck she hated it when she got played like this. "Of course not, why would I? I ain't a fuckin' medic!" She kicked at a stone, trying to pretend she wasn't pouting like a child, but the strange look a random passer-by gave her suggested she was doing a poor job.

Fuu giggled and took a couple steps forwards on the low wall, teetering heavily but never falling. "Well, you should ask when you get home!"

She wanted to snap that there was no way she'd ever ask her village's doctors such a stupid question… but she had to admit that if it were true that'd be pretty damn sick. Eventually, she settled for just keeping up her stony silence and idly watching the people of Takigakure going about their day, though she mentally filed away the information for later.

Perhaps she could trick Omoi into asking for her.

The strange girl keeping her company didn't press the issue, just kept dancing along the narrow, brick wall, bare feet raised on tip-toes as she stepped back and forth. When she reached the end of the wall, she'd spin on her heels, before wobbling her way back up, whenever she came to the spot where Karui was sitting – and adamantly refusing to move from – she'd leap over her head, or step around her, apparently she had no concept of 'personal space'.

Karui sighed and pulled at the loose threads on her skirt. How much longer was Bee gonna take? She'd been sitting outside the Kage offices for almost three hours now, and the first two and a half of those hours had been spent pacing and sighing and seriously considering the political ramifications of a lowly chunin barging into a top-secret meeting between one village's Kage and another's jinchuriki. As much as she hated to admit it, her teammate had had the right idea when he'd wandered off to appreciate Takigakure's grand vistas.

She was just about to accept her fate to spend the rest of the day staring unseeingly into the deep, terrible void of boredom when a cute, chipper girl had landed on the wall next to her and started peppering her with questions.

"Sooo…" And there she went again. "How're you finding the village?"

Karui hummed and looked at the small market opposite them and the people milling about there. "I dunno. Quaint." She caught the eye of a middle-aged man, he immediately dropped his head and hurried down the street, though he wasn't quick enough for her to miss the dark sneer he'd sent her way.

A suspicious folk, these waterfall villagers. Present company excluded.

The look on Fuu's face suggested that she disagreed, which confirmed Karui's suspicions that she'd never left her home village. "What's it like in Kumo then? You got a huge high-tech city?"

"Yup." She didn't bother to elaborate, not even when the girl immediately launched into a barrage of questions so long she didn't stop until all her breath had run out.

She was clearly annoyed that her curiosity wasn't being sated, pouting like a toddler and stamping away. Only to the end of the wall though, once there, she spun in place to retrace her steps.

Karui expected her to take the trip at the same slow, lazy pace she'd taken the last several dozen, so was entirely unprepared when she took a running start and cartwheeled over her, small, surprisingly strong, hands using Karui's shoulders as a helpful launching pad.

High, tinkling laughter filtered through the pounding of her heart in her ears, enough to snap her out of her shock and glare at the other girl. "Fucking!" She had planned to say something else, really, but the angry tirade fizzled out of her brain the second she saw Fuu's grin, so wide it showed off almost every one of her teeth, laughter turning her dark cheeks red as she clutched at her own stomach, tears beading at the corners of her eyes as her breath escaped her.

Karui wasn't usually one for reading into things, but she couldn't help but feel that this was the face of someone who hadn't laughed in a very long time, and intended to make the most of it while it lasted.

"Just… get off that wall, will ya," she eventually said, glaring into the distance and fighting back the heat on her cheeks, "if you break your neck while I'm nearby someone's gonna try and pin the blame on the foreign ninja and start another war."

She was still laughing, though she quietened down enough to answer, "No one would blame you, they'd probably thank you instead." Her happy tone and dark words didn't match at all, leaving Karui feeling as though she might tip off the wall, even though she was the one sitting down.

"Why would they do that?" she asked, slow and careful, praying that she wasn't overstepping like she always did.

"'Cause I'm a jinchuriki."

Karui started. That… wasn't at all what she'd expected to hear, though it certainly explained Bee's sudden interest in coming here. She examined the girl a little more closely, applying this new information to the inconsistencies she'd noticed earlier.

The glares she'd been receiving from complete strangers might have more to do with her company than her nationality. Her slim frame suddenly made more sense; in her, admittedly limited, experience, jinchuriki seemed to burn through energy quicker than Omoi burned through lollipops, Bee and Yugito counteracted it by eating incredible amounts, but in a village less understanding, it made sense that a girl like Fuu might be malnourished. She also just acted… odd. Not in a bad way, Karui was enjoying her company well enough, but she didn't quite seem to grasp usual social conventions, like not walking up to complete strangers and asking them random questions about their home.

She dropped her head back to stare up at the smattering of wispy clouds, leaning heavily against her hands. "Huh." Honestly, she had no idea what else to say.

"Huh?" Fuu's head suddenly blocked her view of the sky – far closer than most people would tolerate, but Karui had to admit that the other girl had very pretty eyes – glaring down at her like she'd gravely insulted her entire clan.

She blinked up at her. "Huh."

It was amusing to watch her entire face screw up into a confused, but kinda cute, scowl. "Whaddya _mean_ 'huh'?"

"Doesn't mean anything, 's just interesting is all."

Of course she knew what she was really asking, but she didn't really see what there was to explain; she didn't care that Fuu was a jinchuriki, except that now she had even more respect for her, just like she had with the two from Kumo.

Fuu continued to frown at her, before poking harshly in the middle of her forehead. "You're weird."

Karui grinned, reaching up to poke her back. "That's rich coming from _you_ ," she said, snickering at the expression she received in return, "you're cute though, so it's all cool."

When Fuu literally fell off the wall into the green shrubbery contained by it, she couldn't help but burst out laughing, even as she twisted round to try and help her out of it. By the time she was upright and sitting safely next to her, that messy, minty green hair was even wilder than it was to start with, leaves and twigs sticking out at every angle; Karui casually brushed the worst of it away, biting her lip to hide the grin at how red the girl's cheeks were getting.

She kept brushing through those soft, slightly-frizzy strands, long after she'd removed the last leaf, wondering just how far she was willing to push this moment, when a familiar bellow made her shriek and fall backwards herself.

"YOOO! Karu-killer!" B landed so heavily that the ground shook – she didn't even wanna know where he'd leapt from. "We're gonna be stayin' here a while, so you better show me that smile!"

Looking up at the girl giggling next to her as she clambered back up, it really wasn't difficult.


End file.
